For Home Owners & Realtors too

With Googles emphasis on content, using WordPress technology to promote your property is a no-brainer. You can setup a free site under the wordpress.com domain like this one. But Google largely ignores these free blogger-style domains – you’re reliant upon giving out the url link in your brochures or other advertising. Note this can all compliment what you’re doing on other sites like Trademe etc.

But if you’re (obviously) after search traffic, then just setuping your own domain for your own property and using a $100 commercial theme discussed in meetup 2 But a fancy looking theme and running WordPress still isn’t enough. Yes, you may get a very pretty website your friends say they love – But good looks alone do not equate to more traffic or sales opportunities. Google is quite blind to all the money spent on ‘design’ and looks.

For newcomers this is a costly lesson, since we were always told by graphic designers that a fancy brochure site is best. Appearances and branding is everything. Sadly no. Appearances mean nothing if you can’t get website traffic in the first place! Good looks are always important, but good e-marketing followup, good coding and designing for Google [as well as humans] is the real secret to success online.

Expertly Coded for More Local Search Traffic

Good site content, structure and SEO plugins like Yoast discussed in our SEO meetup are a great start. But realty is a tough, high-paced market. Competing head-on with the established high profile sites is a massive task. Instead we need to employ Google, with its natural desire to provide relevant, localised results.

Special SEO coding must be added in around schema, authorship, titles, maps, opengraph etc etc. This way Google knows more of you and your location, meaning it is much more likely list your property in a local search result page alongside those big industry sites.

Unfortunately there’s no magical ‘plugin’ that does all this geeky stuff. It takes planning, expertise and effort to work through, but the results can truly astound.

Googles Local Search and Local Listings is the key

A realtor website that is both personal and local-focused is critical now, since the majority of home owners keep in their current neighbourhood. Very few realise that Google can be leveraged to help get us get ranked for your area within days, utilising both organic and Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising. (Using Adwords for selling your home is also surprising effective and cheap too compared with ads in other sectors). A strategic presence in Trademe is also important, providing links back to your site. It’s all about leveraging as many online toolsets as you can to ensure you stand out.

Halve Your Site Development Costs – And Double Your Traffic

For realtors selling multiple properties that need a professional edge, I’ve built a specialist mobile-responsive full directory site that rival the big $20-50k varieties. The key is Google. A well thought out WordPress Realty site will get MORE organic search traffic in less time, as well as being MUCH easier to maintain AND draw in traffic from multiple social channels like Facebook as well as local sites like Trademe.

Plus with WordPress there are many super-affordable Mobile apps tools that have their content feed from the WordPress site. No separate site or portal needed, which is often the only (more costly) option given to companies today. … And unlike those proprietary solutions, you’re not locked in or held to ransom by web designers or developers – All this for half the build and upkeep cost. See our example website.

Such is the power of WordPress to help people affordably market and get found online!